It (really does) take a village

It Takes A Community to Address Substance Use Disorder

I am a person in long-term recovery from alcoholism and opioid use disorder. Via my own journey through detoxification, residential treatment, intensive outpatient programs, sober living homes, psychotherapy, and a loving family, I have found my way out of the abyss of addiction. I am one of the fortunate.

Getting sober was the easy part for me. However, not everyone has the means or access to these services. Transportation, felony records, lack of insurance, and stigma are just a few of the barriers facing many who desperately want to get sober. Which is the point. Those that want recovery are denied access.

Staying sober presents a different challenge. For me, the key to long-term recovery has been peer connection. In my case, becoming involved in the recovery movement offered me social and professional connections to like-minded people with the same goal in mind: maintaining our sobriety by giving back what was given to us.?

In my case, however, I had the luxury of financial security, employment, housing and healthcare. Many do not have such luxuries and therefore languish on the outskirts of a program of care.

So where does the community fit in? For starters, forward-thinking communities have declared substance-use-disorder (SUD) as a public health issue. In addition to the preponderance of fentanyl-related overdoses that dominate the headlines, homelessness and the spread of HIV, hepatitis and STD’s pose significant public risk. Since the majority of individuals with an SUD also have co-occurring mental illness, the pressure on our healthcare systems has been profound.?

The Recovery Ready Community framework provides a blueprint for communities to gather and address these barriers. Having commitment from leaders from all community sectors – health, city/town government, education, workforce development, housing, service providers, law enforcement and justice, and first responders is the first step. Developing a coordinated care approach to collaboration across sectors is the next.

Through the Greater Portsmouth Recovery Ready Community Coalition, the city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire has embarked on a multi-year journey to raise the recovery capacity of the entire community system of care. To date, we have made much progress in housing, access to services, workforce development and coordination of care. However, we have much work to do by expanding on these successes, and tackling other challenges such as harm reduction, prevention, services for youth, services for the homeless, co-occurring disorders, and the elimination of stigma.

Watch this space for updates and learnings from the coalition as we progress. Onward! #community #recovery #portsmouthnh